With Insider Help, ID Theft Ring Stole $700,000 In Apple Gift Cards 57
itwbennett writes The Manhattan District Attorney's office has indicted five people for using personal information stolen from around 200 people to fund the purchase of hundreds of thousands of dollars in Apple gift cards, which in turn were used to buy Apple products. "Using stolen information to purchase Apple products is one of the most common schemes employed by cybercrime and identity theft rings today," District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement. "We see in case after case how all it takes is single insider at a company—in this instance, allegedly, a receptionist in a dentists' office—to set an identity theft ring in motion, which then tries to monetize the stolen information by purchasing Apple goods for resale or personal use," he said.
What about the banks? (Score:4, Insightful)
>We see in case after case how all it takes is single insider at a company—in this instance, allegedly, a receptionist in a dentists' office—to set an identity theft ring in motion, which then tries to monetize the stolen information by purchasing Apple goods for resale or personal use
Those people can do that because of the horribly insecure payment methods the banks impose on everyone. If crime requires motive and opportunity, then it's the banks who are providing the opportunity.
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>We see in case after case how all it takes is single insider at a company—in this instance, allegedly, a receptionist in a dentists' office—to set an identity theft ring in motion, which then tries to monetize the stolen information by purchasing Apple goods for resale or personal use
Those people can do that because of the horribly insecure payment methods the banks impose on everyone. If crime requires motive and opportunity, then it's the banks who are providing the opportunity.
What about them? They got screwed.
What did payment systems have to do with this, it was identity theft and credit fraud. That they bought gift cards and high value electronics are just SOP with any scam like this.
Re:What about the banks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Being able to take someone's money by taking plaintext credentials like social security numbers and the numbers written on the front of a card is exactly the fault of the banks.
Re:What about the banks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Being able to take someone's money by taking plaintext credentials like social security numbers and the numbers written on the front of a card is exactly the fault of the banks.
Exactly - as long as we continue to call it "Identity Theft" and not "Credit/Financial Fraud", it will have the perception of being the victim's problem and fault. If you get your car window smashed and things stolen out of your car, it's often perceived as partially your fault for where you parked, what you had exposed, etc. In the case of so-called "identity theft", the actual crime can be taking place miles away, and you may have no realistic way of preventing it. The bank has a problem - not me.
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What about them? They got screwed.
No, they didn't get screwed.
The contract is written in such a way that it is always the merchants that take the financial hit for fraudulent charges, not the banks (even if the merchants themselves did everything correctly on their end).
Also calling the receptionist at a dentist's office "an insider" is misleading. That kind of language was specifically designed for the banks to avoid taking responsibility for the fraud. It was not the dentist's office that was being ripped off, it was Apple. By that novel
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My bad. I just read the article.
Your post should be upvoted and mine should be downvoted into oblivion.
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Yes, it's almost scary to see a dentists' office clerk refered to as an "insider". From the headline I first thought it was an insider at Apple. But the clerk doesn't work for Apple or for any of the banks. He or she just happened to have access to some personal information. That makes an awful lot of "insiders" to be afraid of.
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Apple products can be deactivated remotely, even laptops.
Each device has a serial number that can be linked to the gift cards which can be linked to the stolen credit cards.
Do a little bit or leg work, deactivate the illegally obtained devices. Even if you don't nab the thieves, you make this scheme way less profitable.
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Not if the items get sold before they are deactivated.
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But as a user, I want to know that my product is genuine. That's why I only buy Microsoft products, because just in case I forgot where I purchased my computer, I get reminded over and over that it's genuine!
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User: "I bought this iPad from a white van"
Police: "So can you describe it?"
User: "Well it was white...and it looked somewhat like a van"
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Telling your bank, no, but placing a free 1-year freeze on your credit with the credit reporting agencies does work. Rinse and repeat each year, and turn it off before you apply for credit.
...or just place a permanent freeze on your credit, like I did a decade ago. When you want to apply for credit you temporarily lift the freeze for a few days whereupon it reverts to frozen. It works much like making your Bluetooth device discoverable.
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No doubt because Apple's own employees were involved that Apple would be forced to eat some of that (and that it was Apple's own initiative to allow for instant financing).
Liability will be interesting. So a financing deal was started in the name of Mr. X, but Mr. X didn't actually do anything so isn't liable for anything. Because of that financing deal, Apple handed over a computer or a phone to a crook, and Barclays paid money to Apple. The crook sold the computer or phone to Mr. Y who may or may not have been aware what was going on, and may or may not be found.
First, there's the question whether these computers were stolen. In the UK, in a similar case, a judge decided
Homo sapiens assholius (Score:2)
Why are so many people such jerks?
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Slashdot is jerk central. More jerks then you can shake a stick at. Being here means you have a 100% probability of seeing jerk behavior all the time. At this point you should expect people to be jerks. It's normal.
All though this does not necessarily answer the question of why, it does show that this behavior is normal and should be expected. I hope this helps you out a
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Sorry, Linux isn't a GUI. Which GUI do you dislike specifically?
Not sure how you say Linux is a clone of Windows when it is pretty well documented it is a clone of BSD, which Mac OS X is also a clone of.
why steal information (Score:3)
when you fucking idiots are GIVING IT AWAY on your fucking Facebook accounts??
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What information to people post to Facebook that could result in this kind of fraud? I don't use Facebook so I'm curious to know. Do they post the details of their credit cards or something? Or is it just that the banks have ridiculously low authentication requirements?
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Mothers maiden name: Facebook
Date of birth: Facebook
Pet's name: Facebook
Name of last school you attended: Facebook
Name of favourite teacher (you're probably still in touch with?): Facebook
All I need is your IBAN, I can connect that to a name via your bank, and your Facebook account via your email (which most people who have both will have used the SAME EMAIL ADDRESS) and I own your fucking life.
Apostrophe terrorism: (Score:2)
Wow, that office really gets around...
Master plan (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that if I had to create hundreds of lines of credit, buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Apple products and then sell all this stuff one iPhone at a time on Craigslist I'd end up making less than minimum wage. What a fucking lousy scheme, it's almost as tedious as stealing from park meters or vending machines.
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You don't understand criminals' pyramid schemes, do you?
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Why don't you explain the alleged pyramid scheme involved in this situation? Or does your expertise in this matter stops at making vague statements?
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so 4.6 songs, then?
Apple knew this would be abused (Score:2)
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